Tron was released back in 1982 and hailed as a stunning vision of the future which attracted gamers in their droves. It was an unusual release in the world of arcade games for a number of reasons but most obviously because it was the first movie and game tie-in. The movie was released by Walt Disney as a sci-fi epic which pioneered the use of computer graphics in film and it had been inspired by the growing popularity of video games in general. While the movie was only moderately successful and received very mixed reviews the arcade game was a smash hit.

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Despite the decline of video arcades around the world there are still new titles and machines being released all the time and one which looks set to buck the trend and pull in the cash is the Guitar Hero arcade machine. It was unveiled at the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions held in November 2008 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.

The deal was struck between Konami and Activision and the machine will feature a modified version of Guitar Hero 3 which will run on PC hardware. It’s a big arcade cabinet with a two player option and two wired guitar controllers which look like the controllers released with Guitar Hero: World Tour.

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While there can be no doubt that arcade video games have declined in popularity over the years they are still big business in some parts of the world and developers are still working on releasing new titles. In video arcades are still extremely popular and several new games are released every year from big developers like Sega, Taito, Konami and Namco.

In Japan they hold several annual trade shows to highlight new titles. First up this year is the AOU Amusement Expo which will be held in Tokyo on the 20th and 21st of February. Then there’s the Amusement Machine Show which is put on by JAMMA (the Japanese Amusement Machine Manufacturers Association) and held in September. Both shows are primarily for the trade but they include days where they open to the public and large crowds flood in to try out the latest machines.

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Pole Position was an exciting racing game released in 1982 by Namco and published by Atari in the US. Atari had to translate the game into English and they ran into problems when the housing they used for the game chip caused it to overheat and crash, the first of many problems they suffered with the hardware. They had actually lost out to Bally Midway on first choice of game from Namco (Bally Midway chose Mappy) but despite the teething problems Pole Position turned out to be an amazingly popular game.

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Centipede was an odd game released into arcades by Atari in 1980. It was a colourful high speed shooter which challenged the player to destroy advancing centipedes as they snaked down the screen with additional challenges provided by various other creepy crawlies. Equally popular with men and women it proved to be fairly successful and spawned the usual array of home console versions, knock offs and sequels.

 

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Frogger was an absolutely classic arcade game which spawned a number of cheap knock offs and a series of endless sequels. The basic idea was to get a frog across the busy road without being run over and squished. If the player managed to do that the trial wasn’t over yet and they still had to make it across a river by jumping on logs and alligator’s backs without being eaten.

 

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Recently, I got a chance to enjoy a few of my favorite arcade games from my pre-teen years in the early 90's. While the retro cabs of the 70's and 80's get the lion's share of the gaming nostalgia around these parts, 1990-93 was a miniature Golden Age for the arcade.

The Merch Campaign Beat-Em-Up

Probably the most prevalent early 90's arcade genre is the Beat-Em-Up, a semi-3D side scroller in the tradition of Streets of Rage. By 1991 a tend in the genre set in and made some of the best, most-played games in the arcade. Superhero games were the standard here. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set the format back in 1989 with four-player cooperative combat featuring the cartoon's famous fighting reptiles. Captain America and the Avengers brought the first comic book tie-in, augmenting the genre with special projectile moves and flying shooter levels to break up the punch-and-kick stages. For many gamers, myself included,

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Missile Command was a 1980 Atari release inspired by the nightmare of the Cold War and real life fears about a nuclear holocaust. It was a strange subject for a game challenging the player to defend six cities from a hail of ballistic missiles.

 

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They don’t make them like this anymore. Defender came out in 1980 and was developed by Williams Electronics. It was widely expected to fail because the complex controls included a joystick for up and down and no fewer than five buttons! Certain vociferous industry execs predicted commercial failure but then they also predicted that Pac-Man would flop so they obviously had no idea what they were talking about.

 

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Battlezone was a tank simulator with vector graphics that was released by Atari in 1980. Placing the player in control of a tank with a first-person view on the 3D world they had to destroy enemy tanks, super tanks, flying saucers and missiles to score points while navigating a maze of geometric blocks and pyramids. The backdrop featured an erupting volcano and a crescent moon.

 

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